More than three dozen U.S. Secret Service agents seek a probe into whether the Biden administration’s DEI policies are undercutting the agency’s ability to perform its core mission.
Jennifer Jacobs, a Bloomberg White House correspondent, posted on social media last week that at least 39 USSS agents had signed a petition calling for a congressional investigation into whether “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies have created a national security threat.
While Jacobs did not mention DEI, the post said the agents circulating the petition are concerned about “incidents indicative of inadequate training,’ a double standard in disciplinary actions, and a vulnerability ‘to potential insider threats.’”
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According to the conservative website Western Journal, the petition was launched after a female USSS agent assigned to Vice President Kamala Harris’ security detail reportedly suffered a breakdown and initiated a physical confrontation with her commanding agent at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
The incident occurred last month.
According to Real Clear Politics, which was the first to report the incident, the agent in question, Michelle Herczeg, reported to the base and began acting erratically.
She grabbed another senior agent’s personal cellphone and deleted apps from it. The agent retrieved his phone and thought nothing more about it.
But Herczeg then reportedly began “mumbling to herself, hid behind curtains, and started throwing items, including menstrual pads, at an agent, telling him that he would need them later to save another agent and telling her peers that they were ‘going to burn in hell and needed to listen to God,’” RCP reported.
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Herczeg also screamed at the special agent in charge and claimed female officers on Harris’ detail would help her and allow her to continue working.
“At that point, other agents on the scene believed Herczeg was suffering from a mental lapse, and the superior officer … approached her to tell her she was relieved from the assignment,” RCP noted. That was when she “snapped entirely,” a source told the outlet.
She chest-bumped and shoved her superior, then tackled him and punched him. Other agents rushed to restrain Herczeg, taking her gun, cuffing her, and removing her from the scene.
RCP added, “Secret Service agents and officers are privately questioning the hiring process and whether the agency had adequately screened Herczeg’s background.”
“Some also wonder whether her hire was part of a diversity, equity, and inclusion push in response to years of staff shortages that may have required the agency to lower its once-strict employment standards and physical performance to reach quotas for female agents and officers.”
RCP noted that in 2016, Herczeg, who at the time was a Dallas police officer, filed a discrimination lawsuit against the city, asserting she was assaulted by a male superior. She sought more than $1 million in damages.
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The Western Journal noted that agents question whether Herczeg’s hiring was part of a “DEI initiative within the Secret Service to push for a force that’s 30 percent female by 2030.”
RCP noted that “the Secret Service has ranked either dead last or near the bottom of a government employee survey of job satisfaction conducted annually by the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service.”
RCP reporter Susan Crabtree said on X last week that the Secret Service seeks a similar DEI-based investigation launched by the Republican-led Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
The committee told FBI Director Christopher Wray in a letter that it sought to learn whether “the FBI’s hyper-fixation on hitting Biden Administration-imposed DEI initiatives, rather than qualifications that make the best federal law enforcement candidates and officers, has created a climate within the FBI that puts the American public and American civil liberties at risk.”
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